


In Pursuit Of Happiness

by SkySamuelle



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4460420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkySamuelle/pseuds/SkySamuelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonnie runs and Damon chases, and it makes for a remarkably Bamon Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Pursuit Of Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Bamon Drabble Party, Prompt: All Bonnie wants for Christmas is Damon.

It’s Christmas Eve and the only gift Bonnie wants is to have Damon back.

Which, she will be the first one to admit, is both blindingly stupid and downright absurd for a number of reasons.

Reason one: she is not a Christian anymore, and regardless of how much Winter Solstice festivities and Christmas overlap in timeline, meaning, and celebration, she has virtually no reason to pick today to wish things went differently.

Reason two: he’s too amoral, too exhausting for her. She is too narrow-minded, too infuriating for him. In short, they are all wrong for each other. But she ended up loving him and he ended up loving her, and it was just one big, unhappy accident.

Reason three: she doesn’t really miss the twisted liaison she had with Damon _per se_. The year she has wasted sleeping with and screaming at him was possibly the worst of her life. She had started to see him clandestinely only because she felt angry and lonely and disconnected from the ‘normal world’ and he had been just as depressed, frustrated and worn with all the fruitless Elena-chasing. They had connected in a furious, very dark place of their souls, and when she put aside the mind-blowing, completely inhibition-free sex, there were truly no added benefits to being with Damon. Their time together was filled with screaming matches, clashes of wills, and more or less subtle insulting of each other until her eyes watered and his eyes flashed black. Being with Damon was painful and destructive except for those surreal moments when it was intimate and wonderful.

Reason 4: _Elena._ Even if Bonnie has never exactly perceived Elena as a concrete threat to her bond with Damon, there’s no forgetting that Damon used to use nearly every chance he had to make Bonnie feel like second best on purpose. He used to revel in having the power of making the witch angry and hurt when they affair was unofficial, and after Stefan and Elena finally found out everything, Damon liked to use their relationship to rile up her best friend. It didn’t matter that Damon wanted or loved Elena for reasons that tied back to his need to self-destruct. It did not matter that Bonnie saw and understood this, because during that year of fucking him and talking him off the edge of insanity, they had basically breathed each other in. They know each other like the back of their hand. It does not mean that Bonnie has any illusions about saving the older Salvatore from himself.  

Reason 5: she doesn’t like herself much when she interacts with Damon in any kind of way. He makes her too angry, too raw, too exposed and too damn slutty. She used to hate how easily it came, to be mean to him, to fight him with words and spells and the purposeful stirring of lust. Everything between them became a battle or a competition. With Damon, she was sharply cutting, jaded and womanly where all Bonnie wants to be is the soft, innocent girl vampires tore apart ages ago.

Reason 6: _she_ is the one who broke up with him. Bonnie was at a point where she was sick and tired of putting up with his crap, of hurting him and of being hurt by him. She was getting annoyed at being forced to keep their relationship separate from the dysfunctional triangle involving the Salvatore brothers and her best friend. Although she had no lasting resentment toward Damon, she had realized she was ready for something different finally. She was ready to be happy again, and regardless of whatever affection they had for each other, he was not going to ever give her what she deserved.

Reason 7: he’s a vampire, and he’s headed toward a virtual eternity unless his trigger happy, reckless ways get him killed first. She is not.

Reason 8: Damon is the most high-maintenance boyfriend she has ever had. Keeping up with him drained away both most of her time and most of her energy.

She can do better than Damon. She should _want_ better than Damon. She can’t waste her life trying to mend him where he does not want to be mended. All of this reasoning makes sense.

Missing Damon Salvatore is therefore irrational.

But she misses him all the same. His expressive face, his hands and lips. His smartass comments, his too intense eyes and his low key chivalry. The small ways he took care of her, making her feel so cherished, the way he was always listening to anything she had to say and the way he fought to draw out what she could not or didn’t want to say.

Damon is her twin _and_ natural enemy: nobody will ever know her as well or as deeply, and although this is not necessarily a bad thing, without him Bonnie feels lonely.

This too makes no sense and all the sense in the world at the same time.

She all but ran from Mystic Falls to meet Lucy in Cabo two weeks ago so they could prepare together for the Winter Solstice celebrations. Lucy is good company and a very flexible teacher in the craft - plus, practicing along with another witch is always exhilarating. And though sandy beaches and spas weren’t the most stereotypical locations for this time of the year, they are just what Bonnie has been craving.

At least until she comes back to the hotel suite she shares with Lucy (the hotel owner is a _‘family friend’_ ad warlock, so she and her cousin are getting both free hospitality and special treatment) to find a familiar vampire sprawled on her king sized bed.

“Damon? What a hell?!”

It’s not her most articulate, brilliant response to one of his stunts, but she is truly too shocked to be eloquent.

His poker face, naturally, doesn’t even waver. This is something she deeply resents.

“Hello, Bonnie.”

“What are you doing here?” she frowns, eyes darting around for any trace of her older cousin.

“Lucy called me.”

Bonnie’s frown deepens. “She would _never_ do that.”

Damon’s lopsided smirk grows, the smugness of it belying the weariness that hides behind his pale eyes, and it’s a perfectly silent version of ‘she did’ that sparks a bit of nostalgia in her very bones. Non-verbal communication was always _their thing_.

“She thought we needed to work out our issues before you _imploded_ from too much brooding.”

The young witch snorts, shaking her head and slipping out of her jacket. “Are you really trying to get me to buy that you came all this way to ease my cousin’s _supposed_ concerns? It’s not quite the style you’re known for.”

Damon’s gaze hardens on her figure as he slides fluidly off the bed and stands, and his expression is now stiff but determined.

“I came to bring you back.”

Bonnie smiles a bit too sweetly and asks with the same deceptive mellowness, “What has Elena gotten herself into now?”

Damon looks confused for a couple of seconds at her abrupt change of tone until the implication in her words catches up with him. It’s not exactly a mystery that lately her life revolves around rescuing Gilberts or Salvatores from whichever mess they are involved in via magical means. It used to be one among many favorite accusations she sprang on him during their endless, hurtful squabbling.

Damon’s lips press together, thinning in annoyance at the memory, a coked eyebrow rising in admonition all directed at her for daring to bring up old discords at a time when he doesn’t feel like owning up to them.

“This has nothing to do with Elena…your place is not here.”

“Really? Care to explain where my place is exactly? In your back pocket whenever you need some ‘incompetent spell working’?”

Here it is, the pattern repeating. Old accusations and salt freshly rubbed on gaping wounds. She hates herself a bit for being neither cool nor harsh enough to fly the inopportune visitor out of her window, but she is just so angry at his presence in her safe haven and even angrier at Lucy for setting her up like this.

“Lucy says you had not set a date to travel back… that maybe you were thinking of staying,” Damon insists, voice heated despite his effort to play it cool. “Is that true?”

Bonnie is momentarily shocked that Lucy picked up on that without giving away her hand.

“How is this any of your business?!” she snaps, more defensive than she would like.

“Because _you_ are my business!” he snaps right back, on a growling, aggressive note that makes her heart flutter stupidly.

“Since _when_?”

“Don’t play with me!”

In a heartbeat, he is in her face, hands grasping her elbows tightly enough to hurt a little but not tightly enough to bruise. She retaliates with the usual burst of painful aneurisms, but he has grown used to them enough to resist, so his hold doesn’t waver even as his gaze gets unfocused for a few seconds.

“Don’t manhandle me,” she spits through gritted teeth. “And don’t you dare yell in my face like I’m a dog to be punished into submission!”

And then she is shoving him far away from her telekinetically, smug dark satisfaction rising inside her at the loud smacking of his back against the wall.

Damon groans in pain at the violence of the impact, or maybe it’s some other emotion mingled with it, because by the next moment he is on his feet again, licking his lips and glaring at her the way he usually does when he is thinking something very filthy.

Bonnie can suddenly see with uncomfortable clarity where this is heading – the usual anguishing place with no clothes, no boundaries, and sweaty bodies rolling on the floor.

It makes her feel entrapped, unable to breathe where once all she felt was the desire to come alive underneath him.

“You need to leave. I’m not doing this with you again, and I won’t be bullied into it just because you’re horny or bored. Go back to Elena and your stupid love triangle; I’ve had enough of it.”

She breathes out, shaking herself out of that feeling.

“I came after you because I _want_ you, Bonnie. Is that not enough?” he replies, sounding and looking so exasperated that it coaxes a bitter chuckle out of her throat because, face it, it’s just like Damon to expect miracles from such a tiny token of sincerity.

“Of course it’s not. Have I not told you before that I wanted something more than this?”

“You told me you wanted to be happy,” he shrugs. “I can recall a few occasions where I made you _spectacularly_ happy.”

Bonnie rolls her eyes, unimpressed at his so called wit. “Not everything is about sex, Damon. I want the kind of happiness that lasts past afterglow, and a healthy relationship where I don’t need to scream or cry half of the time.”

“So? We can have that if we want to.”

This actually surprises her, just as the purposeful casualty in the vampire’s tone does, and the witch’s green eyes narrow sharply on his visage, looking hard for clues of deceit and finding none.

It’s worrisome since Damon has the bad habit of sincerely meaning any sentimental stuff he says half-seriously.

He starts to swagger close to her again, and Bonnie knows she needs to come up with some strategic line of defense fast, because hope is dangerous and she had locked the door on it where he’s concerned with the steady determination to never open it again.

“I want to be more than second best for the man I am with,” she clarifies, holding her chin proudly up and challenging him to contradict her with a frosty glare.

“I don’t chase all the way to California for a convenient fuck, Bonnie,” Damon smiles, cups her cheek just to smile a bit more affectionately when his hand is snootily swatted away.

“I think you know you’re not the kind of girl to be a consolation prize. Not for me, anyway. You always seemed a bit more aware of it than I would have _liked_.”

Alarm bells go of inside Bonnie’s head: she can feel something inside melting a little at how earnest he looks, and she should know better than that by now.

 _DON’T DARE FALL FOR IT!_ \- she mentally threatens the small, vulnerable part of herself that is still a hopeless romantic .

Words are just words, and the heart will believe what it wants to be true, but – as Grams used to say- wishing that dragons are real won’t make them so.

“Talking is cheap – what good is it to me that if you feel that way and act the opposite? Do you _care_ about me? _Prove_ it.”

Damon’s expression shamelessly lights up at the prospective of a challenge and that’s just one more reason that has her itching to slap him until his flawlessly pale cheeks turn a purplish blue.

“How so?” he inquires, leaning forward so he is invading her personal space even more than he already was and managing to imbue those two words with an impossible amount of sleazy sexual innuendo.

“Leave,” she smirks, pleased at how fast his mask of bravado slips with that one command from her lips. “And then when I come back, you can woo me.”

Damon blinks at her like his brain is experiencing a grave difficulty to make sense of what he has just heard.

“ _Woo_ you?” he repeats slowly, nearly expecting that there’s some particularly contrived double meaning behind those two words.

“It’s what you call it when you are working up to sleeping with someone while treating them with respect. I’m sure Stefan can give you some pointers.”

The mention of his brother’s name predictably shocks the vampire out of his daze, or maybe it’s just a conditioned response that has Damon’s whole face darkening in disgust. It’s hard to tell the difference.

Either way, Bonnie saunters smoothly off to the door and holds it open for her unmoving, scowling guest: “I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Damon insists, staying stubbornly rooted right where he is.

“Not at all. You should be grateful for the head start, because I have no intention of making it easy for you.”

“When have you ever?” the vampire sighs with a curious absence of hostility.

He studies her for a while, weighing his options and taking in every inch of her face suspiciously, mentally calculating how much of a chance there was that the witch is lying just to buy herself the time to disappear from his life for good. In the end, he decides that running was never much Bonnie Bennett’s style, if only because she is a stubborn, proud-to-the-point- of-imbecility little thing.

“Fine,” he concedes grumpily, speeds up to be right in front of her in a flash, and adds, more cockily and way too close to her ear, “Bring it on, little witch.”

And then he is gone, leaving Bonnie to wonder if she has not just gotten herself into an ever bigger mess.

Be that as it may, that phantom ache in her chest is gone now. Maybe Lucy deserves a thank you, after all.


End file.
